


a war over the board

by senator_princess_general



Category: Dalton Academy Series
Genre: Ayo guess who just binged The Queen's Gambit, Be gentle I didn't proofread this lmfao, Chess but make it sexy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29234556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/senator_princess_general/pseuds/senator_princess_general
Summary: Logan Wright is the current chess champion of the United States. Immovable and near impossible to beat. So, who does this boy with no formal training or professional playing, think he is to beat him?
Relationships: John Logan Wright III/Micah Randall
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	a war over the board

Logan Wright liked to win. More than that: he didn’t think he had ever loved anyone or anything more than he did  _ winning _ . Competitions, tournaments, lovers… life was a game for him to win. And for him, life was a game of chess.

As a child, he was intensely drawn to the carefully sculpted designs of his mother’s crystal set. It gleamed in the glow of dawn, and more than once did his mother find young Logan with pieces in his mouth or played with as if they were little plastic things. This only stopped when she had taught Logan to play. While she was no more than a casual player who had the board more for aesthetic purposes than practical, Logan soon beat her consistently in a number of weeks. 

In school he joined chess clubs, easily sweeping his fellow students on their first days. Undefeated for six years as a teenager. While as a child he was prone to flip boards and throw pieces when he lost, he soon developed a keen addiction to the feeling of winning. Game after game after game, he would pull through with vicious attacks that seemed to almost antagonize his opponents without opening his mouth. A slide of a piece and the knife of his glance were enough to instill uncertainty in even the most confident of players. This was his craft, and he was the king.

Which is why he found himself so immensely captivated and frustrated by the plays of the taller, glasses-wearing boy who sat across from him.

Youngest New York Champion, Logan Wright. Grandmaster at seventeen, Logan Wright. Current reigning United States Champion, Logan Wright, was not as challenged in a single match since his semi-final against Hendricks to win his most current title, and no amount of subtle intimidation tactics or antagonism affected the boy, who primly sat with an unwavering focus and calculating glare as his army. He had no time to read the boy in front of him. Only what his hands played. The most serene machine Logan had ever witnessed. How enraging.

Everything about the boy enraged him.  _ Randall.  _ Micah Randall. The name was like a profanity. He didn’t even have a rank. Hell, he didn’t even have a history of  _ playing  _ at all in collegiate leagues. But, here he was, showing his inexperienced face at a tournament Logan was expecting to sweep. This tournament wasn’t even regional. Just a state tournament hosted by Yale, where they both attended. Logan had heard early in the tournament that some new kid signed up who nobody had even heard of. They all just shrugged him off. Probably just some kid who thought himself competent enough to square up against some of the best players in the state. It turned out, he did, and he was right to. 

Paige was the only boy who even remotely posed a threat to Logan, who enrolled in the tournament almost exclusively to chase a cheap thrill after his recent break up. But, Micah beat Riley as if he were an amateur, revealing nothing on his long face until a small curl of the lip when Riley set down his king after Micah was about to force him into a hook mate. Brutal.

He paced himself slowly and deliberately. When he would finally move his gentle fingers to start Logan’s clock, the notable “click” felt like a cathartic exhale. Logan had his fair share of matches against slower players, but something about Micah’s patience was violent. It was as if Logan attacked when he moved, yet Micah attacked when he remained still. It was absolutely infuriating, and in the meantime while Logan planned his next six moves during Micah’s computations, his mind couldn’t help but wander towards other details about him to hate. His worn out tweed jacket, his off-white handkerchief, the tape that held the left temple of his eyeglasses to the frame, the copies of vintage chess books peeking out of his leather satchel, the way he would occasionally only move to brush locks of oak hair out of his eyes… it was all Logan could look at. If Logan was a king, Micah was a pawn who snuck through the ranks only to become a Queen, and hating this boy was all Logan could bring himself to do.

Which may have been why his focus may have drifted from his remaining knight to attacking with his queen. With his quickest move of the game, Micah moved his bishop from across the board, seizing the knight.

“Checkmate,” Micah near whispered. This was the first time Logan had heard the boy speak, and he couldn’t help but feel like his low voice was laced with haughtiness. 

Logan’s eyes widened as he looked at the board in front of him. A clean victory, made by small, soft movements since the first turn. It was as if Micah knew exactly how he was going to play white. Logan felt a fire engulf his stomach and a haze overtake his brain, but instead of flipping the board like he was motivated to do since he was thirteen, when he saw Micah outreach his hand, all he could do was storm out of the auditorium. 

Micah Randall had just won the tournament.

* * *

The next few days were brutal. While the match clearly didn’t make national news, word spread quickly to the Chess Federation, who began spreading the same few photographs of Micah at the tournament that some kid studying photography took and sold. Suddenly  _ he  _ was all they could talk about, and all Logan’s mind lingered on.

No matter who he was with or what he was doing, all he could think about was that boy. He would play the game over and over again in his mind trying to find faults in Micah’s play to no avail. As he would be video calling his best friends or fencing with his school’s club or taking his various midterm exams, he desperately analyzed the game, hoping,  _ wishing  _ he could find a flaw in Micah’s technique. There were none. He was perfect.  _ He _ was perfect _.  _

But, it was more than the game. It was those warm brown eyes with a freezing cold focus. It was his swift, fluid movements that ebbed like water. It was the handsome, tenderly-cocky smile that stretched across his face when he had beaten the U.S. Champion. Logan hadn’t thought about his ex since the tournament. He hadn’t thought about much of anything but  _ him  _ since the tournament. 

Micah disappeared after the tournament. He never appeared in the school’s chess league and never sought Logan out after the tournament, which once again, maddened the blond. One would think that some chess  _ nobody  _ would give  _ anything _ for an opportunity to converse with the U.S. Champion to get a better grasp on the game or to analyze the intricacies of techniques. He should be  _ begging  _ Logan to speak to him, so, why was Logan the one doing the begging?

He had just about given up on his tedious quest, until, to his utter disbelief, he spotted the brunette. Logan had just gotten out of his weekly night class and was on his way to his apartment, but outside of one of the dorm rooms, he spotted Micah Randall dragging a cigarette and thumbing through a book, illuminated by the soft golden light of the nearby lamppost. He looked divine, and Logan wanted to  _ desecrate  _ him. 

With his hands rolled into fists, he directed himself in Micah’s direction, who he believed  _ clearly  _ heard him approach despite not looking up from his book. Bronstein’s  _ The Chess Struggle in Practice.  _ Fuck this guy. 

Logan cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said venomously.   
  
Micah finally shifted his eyes up to the blond and once again smiled that smile that kept Logan awake at night. “Mr. Wright,” he said, taking another drag. Logan winced at the name.

“Don’t call me that.”   
  
“Sorry,  _ Grandmaster  _ Wright,  _ U.S. Champion  _ Wright-”   
  
“Just ‘Logan’ is fine, please,” he interrupted, clearly peeved. Micah shrugged.

“It was a joke. Sorry.” He looked back down at his book. Did he  _ want  _ Logan to hate him? He played him as easy as the game itself. Logan was the one to break the silence again.

“Who do you think you are?”   
  
Micah dropped his book this time. “Excuse me?”   
  
“You think you can just show up to a tournament for a community you have  _ never  _ participated in, embarrass it, and then  _ pretend  _ you didn’t? Who the  _ fuck  _ do you think you are?”

“I think ‘I like to play chess’.”

“Yeah, well, it was one hell of a way to show it.”   
  
“I was under the impression that anyone could sign up for the tournament. I had every right to be there and to compete. That’s not what you’re mad about.”   


“Don’t tell me why I am angry.”   
  
“Don’t tell me why I shouldn’t have participated in the tournament. I don’t feel the need to justify my actions, even if you are so inclined to hear them.”   
  
Stalemate. Logan sighed. He was right, and that led to silence once more.

“You’re amazing,” Logan finally admitted. “I haven’t felt that challenged in a game for years.” Micah closed his book this time. Humility was a new look on the champion Micah had yet to see, and he wore it beautifully. Having gotten his focus, Logan continued, “Your plays were perfect. I’ve been analyzing the game for days and found holes in my play but not a single blip from your’s.” Now came the question that reluctantly hung on Logan’s tongue. “How did you do it?”   
  
Micah looked at him a bit puzzled, his facade warmed ever so slightly. He was always  _ warm _ . Logan wanted to hate him so bad, but never could. How could he? “You dig yourself a hole with your pawn, which-”   
  
“No,” he interrupted. “That’s not what I mean.”

Micah blinked, and glowed with realization. “I studied your previous games for one. I knew upon coming to Yale that you would be here and that there was a chance we would play. I couldn’t help but think about how you would probably underestimate me, since I have never played competitively before. As for the rest, I taught myself everything I know. I picked up a chess book as a kid and began studying the techniques and moves and devoured them like it was a fictional epic.” He paused, considering his next words, as to not infuriate the notoriously short tempered blond. “I have never lost a game, but that isn’t much considering I never had competed until today. You were the first challenge I’ve ever had.”   
  
“What are you talking about? You moved so calculatedly. Your mind is a chess manual. How could I have challenged you?”   
  
“You move so emotionally. It was a lesson in the strengths of intuitive, emotional movement, and the way you played was sometimes breathtaking. It’s how I  _ want  _ to play.” He looked at Logan’s piercing eyes with awe, “Our technique is so often a reflection of ourselves, yet my play is so academic that it often isn’t true about me. I’m careless, and I’m negligent in all things other than the game. I can predict fifteen moves ahead on the board but not a single day into my future.”   
  
Logan couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “You’re pompous.”   
  
“And you’re a sore loser,” Micah joked again, quickly shifting the energy of the conversation. “Do you always talk like that to people complimenting you?”   
  
“You would be surprised,” he smiled back. “Unlike my kings, I tend to sabotage myself without thinking.”   


Micah actually laughed a little. “Seems like we’re both drawn to the game for similar reasons.” He put out his cigarette on the brick wall he stood in front of and stretched a little. “I have to go back to my room. I have a lit exam in the morning.” He moved to open the back door to the dormitory. “It was good talking to you, Logan. Even better than playing you.” He smiled again, and Logan melted. “Oh, and before you go.” He stopped and leaned in close to the boy. He smirked. “Keep up the modesty. It looks good on-”

Logan closed the distance between them instantly, the attack of his lips taking the taller boy off guard.

Checkmate.

Micah’s eyes fluttered closed and exhaled as his clock did into Logan’s kiss. He extended his arms over Logan’s shoulders as Logan held Micah’s face in his palms. Logan kissed Micah obsessively, greedily. As if electrified with the thrill of competency and a promise of challenge. Micah’s movements, unlike his play, were sudden and sporadic, as if ambushing after the attack. The kiss of death. The kiss of the enemy. It was an act of war, and it was exhilarating.  _ Arousing. _

To his surprise, Logan pulled away first, staring at the “novice’s” eyes who looked back at him with bewilderment and desire. They still remained inches from each other, and their hands were still grasping at warm skin. For the first time that night, Micah broke the silence.

“Come upstairs with me,” he breathed, seemingly trying to restrain his own desire. Logan was intoxicated. “Fuck my exam. I have a board upstairs. Come up and play a few games.”

Logan smirked. “How many are you thinking?”   
  
“Admittedly, not too many.” Micah tugged at Logan’s cuff with urgency. The fog in his brain dissipated, and for the first time in days, Logan couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

Even when he lost, he still won, after all. 


End file.
